We check out the Disney Site – Yourfirstvisit.net

“Yourfirstvisit.net is astonishingly helpful in ensuring both first time and repeat visitors have a magical visit to Walt Disney World. Highly recommended.” ~ Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World® Resort

Walt Disney World Resort is an amazing place to visit, but it’s so big and contains so much magic that it can easily overwhelm the first-time Guest. If you take your first Disney trip without adequate preparation, you might be so miserable you vow never to return—and you would miss out on a lifetime of incredible experiences that only Walt Disney World can offer.

If you’re having that first-trip-planning anxiety right now, don’t fret! There is a solution. Yourfirstvisit.netprovides exact instructions—and next best options—for first-time Walt Disney World visitors to help them know what to expect and know how to avoid things that can zap the magic right out of the trip. The site, which just had its fifth birthday, now serves more than 200,000 visitors a month, and is growing like crazy.

On the home page, Dave of yourfirstvisit.net addresses the best times to visit Walt Disney World, how long to stay, how old/tall your children should be, where to stay, how much to budget, when your plans need to be firm, how and where to eat, budgeting your time, families with special circumstances, and a myriad of additional resources. Other pages (more than 1,500 pages of deeper content, with new material published almost daily) fulfill the “next best options” by ranking in order stuff such as the best weeks of the year to visit and the best hotels. Returning visitors may especially like the Week Picker, which is one of the few pages on the site designed particularly for them.

According to yourfirstvisit.net, crowd levels are the first factor to consider when planning a trip to Walt Disney World. Why? Let’s look at Magic Kingdom, the Resort’s signature park. Dave tells us Magic Kingdom’s attendance varies from about 20,000 people on its slowest days to 90,000+ during the Christmas holidays. On average, the park can process 40,000 people per hour on its attractions, so you can see how higher numbers would affect wait times. Increased wait times means you get to do fewer fun things. (It also means grumpier travelers, tired feet and legs, and increased agitation. Add those three together and you get negative happiness at the Most Magical Place on Earth!)

Yourfirstvisit.net’s detailed crowd calendars help you save literally days of waiting in line, and they provide suggestions for how to maximize Disney magic even if busy times of the year are the only dates your family can travel. Dave also takes into consideration other trip planning factors, such as seasonal pricing, the hurricane season, ride closures, and special events in his suggested travel dates.

Also extremely beneficial are Dave’s suggested itineraries. He factors in budgets, crowds, length of stay, time of stay, and must-do activities and offers you ideal plans OR guides you to create your own touring plan with his helpful tools. Dave includes a comprehensive guide to rides and attractions too, so you know in advance what’s where and how to map your days at the parks.

An overview of Disney Resort hotels is also included, with great attention given not only to the price factor, but also to kid-friendliness, convenience of location, and additional amenities each has to offer. Dave has thought of everything! He has suggestions for large families, military families, and even “tightwads,” lol! He also has a listing of where not to stay. And Dave truly knows what he’s talking about, because he has stayed at every hotel on property—and in each type of room offered at each.

Probably the handiest tool for first-timers on yourfirstvisit.net is the step-by-step to-do list. Dave goes through a checklist of instructions for you, including specific times to book dining reservations and tips regarding special room requests. Honestly, though, if you follow Dave’s instructions at yourfirstvisit.netfor your first family visit to Walt Disney World, you will save thousands of dollars,avoid dozens of hours waiting in line and prevent yourself many headaches, and you will allow yourself and your family to have the most magical experience of your lives!

MORE ABOUT DAVE: Dave Shute (who writes the site under the pen name “David Hobart”) completed most of the work for a PhD in English lit, focusing on Shakespeare, before switching to an MBA program and becoming a strategy consultant. He also has a lifelong amateur interest in architecture and design. He brings this combination of insight into story, poetics, space, business and numbers to his Disney and Disney World observations.

Jodi Whisenhunt is a Disney-devoted veteran homeschooling mom of 3 and an award-winning freelance writer and editor. Think outside the textbook and learn while you play at her Magical Mouse Schoolhouse, where Disney IS school!